Dr. Lili Luo is one of the coauthors for the paper titled "Vignettes as a Research Method: Implications for LIS Research", which won the 2016 ALISE/Proquest Methodology Paper Competition Award. The paper provided an overview of vignettes and discussed the potential of using this method in LIS research.

San Jose Gateway PhD candidate Cherry-Ann Smart has been selected as a 2016 Society for Scholarly Publishing International Fellow. One of a handful to be chosen from over 100 applicants, the honor includes membership to the Society, access to a mentor, and travel and attendance at the 38th Annual Meeting taking place in Vancouver, Canada from June 1-3, 2016. The Society for Scholarly Publishing(link is external) is “a nonprofit organization formed to promote and advance communication among all sectors of the scholarly publication community through networking, information dissemination, and facilitation of new developments in the field.” Cherry-Ann’s research focuses on services to international and foreign student in academic libraries. Congratulations, Cherry-Ann!

Stacie Ledden, new member of the CIRI International Advisory Board

We are delighted to welcome Stacie Ledden as a new member of the CIRI International Advisory Board. Stacie Ledden is the Director of Innovations and Brand Strategy at Anythink Libraries. After joining the district in 2008, Stacie assisted in launching the Anythink brand that in 2011 garnered the John Cotton Dana Award for Outstanding Public Relations in Libraries. Previous to her work at Anythink, Stacie was an editor for a global newswire service, freelance writer and faithful library customer. In 2012, she helped launch R-Squared – The Risk & Reward Conference, which focused on creativity and taking smart risks to move libraries forward. She is also chair of the planning committee for Outside the Lines: Libraries Reintroduced, a nationwide initiative demonstrating the creativity and innovation happening in libraries. Stacie was named one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers for 2013.

Melissa Fraser-Arnott Forthcoming Article

San Jose Gateway PhD candidate Melissa Fraser-Arnott recently published an article on her work in the highly-regarded LIBRI journal (citation below). She was also shortlisted for the 2016 Doctoral Student Research Poster award with her poster called "Personalizing Success: The Professional Identity Experiences of LIS Graduates in Non-Library Roles." Congratulations, Melissa! Learn more more about Melissa’s work.

Dr. Lili Luo will partner with Loyola Marymount University Library to work on a three year project funded by IMLS - “Building Research Capacity Among Academic Librarians: IRDL-2.” This project will extend and improve the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL). Sixty novice academic and research librarian researchers will receive instruction in research methods and a full year of support to complete a project. Participants will develop their research skills through participation in a summer workshop featuring in-class exercises and hands-on writing sessions as well as research studies conducted at their home libraries. The project team will deliver instruction; create a workshop environment; foster an environment of collegiality and support in the research process; facilitate the dissemination of results; and focus on new evaluative components to create a cost-effective, sustainable model for academic and research librarians to become skilled researchers capable of mentoring and collaborating with one another in their investigative work.

Dr. Clarence Maybee Receives QUT Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award

S an Jose Gateway PhD Alumnus Dr. Clarence Maybee has just received a QUT Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award for 2015. It is in recognition of excellence demonstrated in higher degree research practice, and for his contribution to the LIS discipline. The committee chooses the recipients for this prestigious award from all dissertations completed across the university during the year, and places him in the top 5% of successful doctoral candidates for 2015. Drs. Kristen Rebmann, Christine Bruce, and Many Lupton (QUT) were members of Clarence’s supervisory team. Well done, Clarence!

Stephens’ project, “Connected Learning: Evaluating and Refining an Academic Community Blogging Platform” grew out of cutting-edge educational research about teaching and learning and its application in the recently updated Information Communities course offered in the MLIS program.

During the period of her RSCA grant, Luo will be completing two chapters of a book she is co- authoring, Enhancing Library and Information Research Skills: A Guidebook for Academic Librarians. According to Luo, “The book will generate more awareness about the value of research among librarians, encourage them to apply research to enhance practice, and promote the evidence- based culture in LIS.”

San Nicolas-Rocca will be using her RSCA grant to investigate how a multimedia mobile e-health application can be used with patients who need endoscopy to disseminate important health information and improve endoscopy outcomes. The project, “Use of Mobile Health Application to Improve Endoscopy Outcomes,” builds upon San Nicolas-Rocca’s current research in mobile health information systems, and holds great promise for patient education.

Christie Koontz, Tonia San Nicolas-Rocca and Virginia Tucker

Congratulations to Christie Koontz, Tonia San Nicolas-Rocca and Virginia Tucker from the School of Information received $1,000 each to replace their traditional textbook with a free or low-cost textbook alternative. Read more here.

Chris Hagar

Chris Hagar presented the preliminary findings of the study "Public Library Partnerships with Local Agencies to Meet Community Disaster Preparedness and Response Needs" at the 12th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response & Management (ISCRAM) held in Kristiansand, Norway, May 24-27. You can find the full text of the paper here.

T he Purdue Libraries’ Research Award recognizes scholarship which exemplifies excellence in library and information science for an outstanding research paper that has been published in the last 4 years.

Shelly Buchanan

Shelly Buchanan, PhD Candidate, presented her poster, "The lived experience of eighth grade students engaged in student driven inquiry” at the 7th International Conference on Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries held in Paris, May 26 - 29.

Nilo Sarraf

Nilo Sarraf, PhD Candidate, presented her paper "Towards Smart Emotional Neuro Search Engines: An Extension of the Human Brain" at the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery(ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI), April 14, SAP, Palo Alto. Further information here http://www.baychi.org/calendar/20150414/#1.

Dr. Joni Richards Bodart Featured in Tribute to Patty Campbell

Dr. Joni Richards Bodart is featured in a tribute to one of the pioneers in the field of YA literature, Patty Campbell. The tribute was created by Jennifer Beuhler under the auspices of the International Reading Association and the National Conference of Teachers of English.

iSchool/Hewlett Packard Research Partnership

The School of Information at San José State University and Hewlett Packard (HP) Print Production Automation Lab partnered in the summer of 2013 to discuss Open Educational Resources (OER) and electronic textbooks. In order to gain an understanding of the factors that affect student preferences for print versus electronic textbooks, 527 students enrolled at San José State University in the fall 2013 semester participated in a survey, including 29 percent from the iSchool.

The results indicated that the majority of all respondents (54 percent) believe that “ease of use” is an advantage of printed textbooks, and they indicated that print is the preferred format for reading articles, guides, and manuals. The four major advantages of using an electronic textbook were cited as: lightweight, convenient to access at all times, search function, and cost.

iSchool professors, Lisa Daulby and Dr. Mary Bolin, are going to pilot a project during the summer of 2014 to deliver class material through personalized hybrid books. Students will be able to select a print and/or electronic version of a textbook where they will be able to add notes to the electronic text. Students and faculty in the pilot courses will assess their experiences, and HP engineers will refine the product for expanded use in future terms. The results of the pilot course will provide information on determining those features that best enhance the educational experience.

iSchool Partners with RedLink

The iSchool is partnering with RedLink, a Silicon Valley startup, to develop a new taxonomy for academic publishers. Under the guidance of Dr. Virginia Tucker, a faculty member at the iSchool, a team will create a hierarchical taxonomy of academic disciplines. The new classification system will be incorporated into the RedLink project that provides business intelligence to the academic publishing industry. Read more here.

Hagar and Kartzinel Publish Paper

Dr. Christine Hagar and co-author Heather Kartzinel (SJSU iSchool MLIS student) had the article "Healthcare information for all by 2015: Preliminary findings and future direction" published in Information Development, 19 September 2014. The online version of this article can be found at: http://idv.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/09/17/0266666914550493.
DOI: 10.1177/0266666914550493

Congratulations to Clarence D. Maybee (PhD candidate) who received the Queensland University Technology (QUT) Higher Education Research Best Publication Award in the category of Higher Degree Student for the paper Learning to use information: Informed learning in the undergraduate classroom. The paper was published in Library & Information Science Research (volume 35, issue 3, July 2013, 200-206) co-authored by Christine Bruce, Mandy Lupton and Kristen Rebmann.

A Busy Time for YA Space Research

The iSchool’s 4-year National Leadership grant project, studying young adult spaces in public new public libraries - funded in-part by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) - was very productive this summer. The project team, headed by iSchool associate professor, Dr. Anthony Bernier, published two featured peer-reviewed articles in successive issues of the journal Public Libraries. The first, “Learning from Libraries and Teens about YA Library Spaces,” authored by Dr. Denise Agosto (associate professor at Drexel University), Bernier, and two iSchool graduate research assistants, L. Meghann Kuhlmann and Jonathan Pacheco Bell) appeared in the May/June issue (vol. 53, no. 3) and examined video content taken by librarians and young people themselves in describing their YA spaces.

The second featured article, appearing in the July/August issue of Public Libraries (vol. 53, no. 4), “YA Spaces and the End of Postural Tyranny,” was co-authored by Bernier and Dr. Mike Males, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco. This article mined statistical survey data also collected from youth librarians and YAs as well as exploited contemporary images (“visual anecdotes”) of youth to resolve that libraries need to offer a wider variety of seating options to young library users. The article introduced new language into the design equation for YA spaces, such as “information trough,” “fugitive seating,” and “dapedotaxis-” meaning floor orientation.

The other achievement of the summer was the successful mounting of the project’s primary source data onto the website YouthFacts.org where other researchers, students, and the larger public will have access to both the survey data taken from nearly 300 new public libraries as well as transcripts and video content additionally taken from 24 participating libraries.

Institute for Research Design in Librarianship

The IMLS-funded Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL) is set to open applications for the second year of its professional development program for academic and research librarians on December 1st, 2014. SJSU iSchool is a partner on this project, and two iSchool faculty members, Dr. Lili Luo and Dr. Michael Stephens are IRDL instructors.

Here’s IRDL’s call for proposals:

“We are seeking novice librarian researchers who are employed by academic libraries or research libraries outside an academic setting in the United States to participate in the Institute. Novice researchers typically may have conducted research but have not yet had a peer-reviewed article published as the primary author or had an individual presentation accepted by a peer-reviewed conference. We define “novice” broadly; if you feel that you would benefit from being guided throughout the entire research design process, we encourage your application. Librarians of all levels of professional experience are welcome to apply.

We seek librarians with a passion for research and a desire to improve their research skills. IRDL is designed to bring together all that the literature tells us about the necessary conditions for librarians to conduct valid and reliable research in an institutional setting. The cohort will be chosen from a selective submission process, with an emphasis on enthusiasm for research and diversity from a variety of perspectives, including ethnicity and type and size of library.

The Advisory Board, comprised of librarians with research experience in a variety of settings, will use an open review process to select participants who will travel to Los Angeles, California, participate in all Institute activities, and conduct a research project during the 2015-2016 academic year. The online application requires a proposed research project that will be revised at the workshop and will be the basis for the study to be completed in the coming year.”

Librarians accepted into the program “will receive, at no cost to them, instruction in research design and a full year of peer/mentor support to complete a research project at their home institutions. The summer Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL) workshop is supplemented with pre-Institute learning activities and a personal learning network that provides ongoing mentoring.” The workshop will be held on the campus of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, from July 13-23, 2015.

iSchool Faculty Members Partners to the Knight Foundation Challenge to Improve Libraries

Dr. Chris Hagar and Dr. Mary Ann Harlan are partners in the proposal " Library-led 50 state field test of TV White Spaces (TVWS) potential to support 100,000 new distributed library Wi-Fi access points ." The Libraries WhiteSpace Pilot demonstrates how integrating the near universal compatibility of Wi-Fi with the range and penetrating capabilities of TV White Space (TVWS) equipment has the potential to increase availability and convenience of public library wifi at tens of thousands of new community access points which can aid in disaster response. In an open grant seeking process, all entries are available on the Knight Foundation website. Anyone can “applaud” an idea, post questions, and offer feedback. Out of over 600 proposals, this project has been selected as a semi-finalist. The Knight Foundation will select grant recipients and announce their decision in January 2015.

In response to a new opportunity to garner grant funding to improve libraries, two faculty members at the San José State University (SJSU) School of Information met the Knight Foundation’s challenge head-on in hopes of turning their ideas into reality. The challenge was to answer the question, “How might we leverage libraries as a platform to build more knowledgeable communities?” Read more here.

Congratulations to Libby Trudell

Libby Trudell, a member of the CIRI International Advisory Board, was recognized with the SLA Rose L. Vormelker Award. This award is presented to a mid-career member in good standing who actively teaches and/or mentors students or working professionals.

iSchool Faculty Members Give Keynote Address

iSchool faculty members Dr. Anthony Bernier and Dr. Jeremy Kemp gave a joint keynote address at the annual meeting of BayNet: Bay Area Libraries and Information Network on May 9th at the San Francisco Public Library. The 60-minute talk was titled "Getting it right: Evaluating Library Spaces & Services," and included a Q & A session. A total of 75 members attended. "Whether designing new spaces or remodeling existing ones, working from past successes is crucial. Dr. Bernier and Dr. Kemp will share findings on an IMLS-funded research project using surveys and video transcriptions from 800 of the newest U.S. libraries. The presentation highlighted four beneficial topics: how youth contribute to space design; alternatives in youth seating; and actual youth feedback on what is most important to them about YA designated library spaces. Another portion of the project demonstrated the great potential of using simulated libraries for evidence-based practice in general and specialized library design and services."

Stenström, Roberts, and Haycock Publish Paper

Bernier, Males, and Rickman Publish Article

Dr. Anthony Bernier, Dr. Mike Males, and Collin Rickman's “'It Is Silly to Hide Your Most Active Patrons': Exploring User Participation of Library Space Designs for Young Adults in the United States" was published in the April 2014 edition of Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy. This article advances the first attempt to collect and examine empirical data on young adult (YA) spaces in public libraries from institutions across the United States by surveying current practices in new and renovated buildings. Analysis of an online survey of 257 library and information science (LIS) professionals produced an innovative Youth Participation Index (YPI) used to document the relative intensities of youth involvement in the design and execution of YA spaces. Libraries claiming higher levels of youth participation reported significant quality service improvements across a wide range of outcomes. However, after several decades of advocating for youth involvement in the delivery of library services from many LIS sources, only a minority of the libraries surveyed reported high YPI scores, and the specific mechanisms for enacting youth involvement require further investigation.

New CIRI International Advisory Board Members

Two new members were appointed to the CIRI International Advisory Board: Barbara J. Ford and Libby Trudell. Barbara J. Ford - Director, Mortenson Center for International Library Programs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Ford is the ALA representative of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO and former ALA and ACRL President. Libby Trudell - Chair, SLA Information Technology Division. Trudell is currently a consultant specializing in strategic planning and marketing. She is a longtime member of the executive team for the Dialog® service. Read more here.